My Meggie, a Wedding Consultant as well as Public Relations Maniac, continues to ask me if I want to photograph weddings and I always say, "No!" My work tends to be much more spontaneous than posing a bride and groom and a zillion people. I didn't show my best photography side at Meggie's wedding (except the scratching-her-butt Flower Girl) - it was right after her wedding I was diagnosed with the hypothyroidism that kept me weird for a couple of years.

N E Way...

Look at this!

I took Meggie and her man to Balboa Park yesterday and took photos of them, too. I don't think any are nearly as good as this one, though.

This is the before. (After is after this.) Un-retouched. The picture was this dark to begin with and I didn't know how to lighten pictures a year ago. I didn't attempt to lighten it until a couple of days ago.

While Meghann's wedding was last year in October, I pulled up this picture that I loved, but that had really terrible quality. Knowing Photoshop much better now, I worked on the picture and this is what I came up with.

I really, really, really like this and will put it up somewhere so you can see it larger, too. I'm proud that I have learned Photoshop so well considering a year ago I didn't know how to straighten a horizon! (Remember?!)

I was going through the pictures from the photo shoot a few weeks ago and wanted to share a couple of more with you. This one was just so beautiful - not just the picture, but the generations - I had to share.

As soon as I saw her dress, I knew I needed to photograph her nursing her 14-month old son. I set her on the chair, she began nursing and I "saw" the colors grow with adding the bouquet and ring bearer's pillow (don't all nursing women use pillows anyway?). I ended up taking about 50 photos from 3 different angles. In most of the photos, she is tenderly looking at her son. This is the only photo in which she is smiling and, in my opinion, is the absolutely most exquisite one of all.

Besides my daughter's wedding, this was the first wedding I photographed. The bride is a family member and a client (Read her birth story here), so most of the people at the wedding knew me, which makes it easy to click the shutter and have beautiful photos come into being.

I know most of you will adore this as I do - and yes, I will be submitting this for publication.

This mama, about 20 minutes or so before having her baby, brings her kitty close to her for a snuggle. It was so beautiful to see! And her cat settled under her patiently, not minding the stroking, leaning or hair in his face at all.

For those of us in love with our pets, don't we just totally get this picture? I know I do!

Mom at 7+ centimeters, walking in the Meditation Garden at the hospital. She is working towards a VBAC, has had AROM, has a saline lock in place on her left wrist, is wearing a Telemetry Unit (see it on the lower right of the picture, hanging like a purse off her shoulder) that continuously monitors the baby via the external belts as if she were sitting in the bed and is enjoying the company of her family, her monitrice, her husband, her doctor and the sun, wind and sky.

They wanted to put her in a hospital gown when we first got there, but she had that cute black top on. I suggested a sarong, but she didn't have one. I carry two so's I can help with mal-positioned babies during labor, so offered her the Mickey one or the non-Mickey one; she chose the non-Mickey one. She looks so much better dressed like this than in a hospital gown, don't you think? All women should dress in tank tops and sarongs in labor. Let's make hospitals carry sarongs, eh?

Mom did have a successful VBAC - 10 hours after her AROM with about an hour of pushing. She was told she would never be able to push out any sized child, yet pushed out an Occiput Posterior baby without any bony damage to either herself or her baby. Imagine that! Don't you love when women prove OBs wrong?!